Morphine or other bimodally-acting opioid agonists are administered to relieve severe pain due to the fact that they have analgesic effects mediated by their activation of inhibitory opioid receptors on nociceptive neurons (see North, Trends Neurosci., Vol. 9, pp. 114-117 (1986) and Crain and Shen, Trends Pharmacol. Sci., Vol. 11, pp. 77-81 (1990)).
However, morphine and other bimodally-acting opioid agonists also activate opioid excitatory receptors on nociceptive neurons, which attenuate the analgesic potency of the opioids and result in the development of physical dependence and increased tolerance (see Shen and Crain, Brain Res., Vol. 597, pp. 74-83 (1992)), as well as hyperexcitability, hyperalgesia and other undesirable (excitatory) side effects. As a result, a long-standing need has existed to develop a method of both enhancing the analgesic (inhibitory) effects of bimodally-acting opioid agonists and blocking or preventing undesirable (excitatory) side effects caused by such opioid agonists. The present invention satisfies this need.